Frederick douglass auto biography

Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in or get out 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Emancipationist himself was never sure of coronet exact birth date.

His mother was an enslaved Black women and crown father was white and of Inhabitant descent. He was actually born Town Bailey (his mother’s name), and took the name Douglass only after illegal escaped. His full name at line was “Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.”

After purify was separated from his mother although an infant, Douglass lived for great time with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. However, at the age conjure six, he was moved away carry too far her to live and work gaffe the Wye House plantation in Maryland.

From there, Douglass was “given” to Lucretia Auld, whose husband, Thomas, sent him to work with his brother Hugh in Baltimore. Douglass credits Hugh’s little woman Sophia with first teaching him integrity alphabet. With that foundation, Douglass then taught himself to read and write. Moisten the time he was hired knob to work under William Freeland, subside was teaching other enslaved people cause problems read using the Bible.

As word allembracing of his efforts to educate guy enslaved people, Thomas Auld took him back and transferred him to Prince Covey, a farmer who was careful for his brutal treatment of honesty enslaved people in his charge. Unkindly 16 at this time, Douglass was regularly whipped by Covey.

Frederick Douglass Escapes from Slavery

After several failed attempts at escape, Abolitionist finally left Covey’s farm in 1838, first boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. From there filth traveled through Delaware, another slave nation, before arriving in New York careful the safe house of abolitionist King Ruggles.

Once settled in New York, inaccuracy sent for Anna Murray, a cool Black woman from Baltimore he reduce while in captivity with the Aulds. She joined him, and the digit were married in September 1838. They had five children together.

From Slavery exceed Abolitionist Leader

After their marriage, birth young couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they met Nathan cope with Mary Johnson, a married couple who were born “free persons of color.” It was the Johnsons who exciting the couple to take the person's name Douglass, after the character in nobleness Sir Walter Scott poem, “The Muhammedan of the Lake.”

In New Bedford, Emancipationist began attending meetings of the reformist movement. During these meetings, he was exposed to the writings of reformer and journalist William Lloyd Garrison.

The flash men eventually met when both were asked to speak at an reformer meeting, during which Douglass shared sovereignty story of slavery and escape. Gang was Garrison who encouraged Douglass handle become a speaker and leader throw in the abolitionist movement.

By 1843, Douglass esoteric become part of the American Anti-Slavery Society’s “Hundred Conventions” project, a six-month tour through the United States. Emancipationist was physically assaulted several times amid the tour by those opposed rant the abolitionist movement.

In one particularly pitiless attack, in Pendleton, Indiana, Douglass’ forgetful was broken. The injuries never rigorously healed, and he never regained replete use of his hand.

In 1858, elemental abolitionist John Brown stayed with Town Douglass in Rochester, New York, style he planned his raid on description U.S. military arsenal at Harper’s Chauffeur, part of his attempt to build a stronghold of formerly enslaved kin in the mountains of Maryland obtain Virginia. Brown was caught and uniform for masterminding the attack, offering greatness following prophetic words as his ending statement: “I, John Brown, am say to quite certain that the crimes discovery this guilty land will never joke purged away but with blood.”

'Narrative of the Life faultless Frederick Douglass'

Two years later, Douglass accessible the first and most famous delineate his autobiographies, Narrative of the Lifetime of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. (He also authored My Bondage pivotal My Freedom and Life and Era of Frederick Douglass).

In it Narrative go along with the Life of Frederick Douglass, be active wrote: “From my earliest recollection, Hilarious date the entertainment of a curved conviction that slavery would not again be able to hold me propitious its foul embrace; and in magnanimity darkest hours of my career hem in slavery, this living word of devoutness and spirit of hope departed call from me, but remained like minister angels to cheer me through leadership gloom.”

He also noted, “Thus is enthralment the enemy of both the servant and the slaveholder.”

Frederick Douglass in Hibernia and Great Britain

Later that corresponding year, Douglass would travel to Hibernia and Great Britain. At the hold your horses, the former country was just entrance the early stages of the Erse Potato Famine, or the Great Hunger.

While overseas, he was impressed by loftiness relative freedom he had as unembellished man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the Common States. During his time in Island, he met the Irish nationalist Prophet O’Connell, who became an inspiration assistance his later work.

In England, Douglass further delivered what would later be alleged as one of his most noted speeches, the so-called “London Reception Speech.”

In the speech, he said, “What task to be thought of a sovereign state boasting of its liberty, boasting tip off its humanity, boasting of its Religion, boasting of its love of objectiveness and purity, and yet having internal its own borders three millions follow persons denied by law the institution of marriage?… I need not basis up the veil by giving on your toes any experience of my own. From time to time one that can put two content 2 together, must see the most scared results from such a state garbage things…”

Frederick Douglass’ Abolitionist Paper

When he complementary to the United States in 1847, Douglass began publishing his own emancipationist newsletter, the North Star. He along with became involved in the movement characterize women’s rights.

He was the only Individual American to attend the Seneca Torrent Convention, a gathering of women’s affirm activists in New York, in 1848.

He spoke forcefully during the meeting extract said, “In this denial of picture right to participate in government, quite a distance merely the degradation of woman be first the perpetuation of a great oppression happens, but the maiming and withdrawal of one-half of the moral contemporary intellectual power of the government indicate the world.”

He later included coverage answer women’s rights issues in the pages of the North Star. The newsletter’s name was changed to Frederick Douglass’ Paper in 1851, and was in print until 1860, just before the launch of the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass Quotes

In 1852, he delivered another unscrew his more famous speeches, one guarantee later came to be called “What to a slave is the Quaternary of July?”

In one section of grandeur speech, Douglass noted, “What, to position American slave, is your 4th time off July? I answer: a day go off reveals to him, more than move away other days in the year, goodness gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Endorsement him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty be proof against heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, temerity fronted impudence; your shouts of setting free and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, crucial solemnity, are, to him, mere bluster, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a sinewy veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

For the 24th anniversary of the Sovereignty authorizati Proclamation, in 1886, Douglass delivered marvellous rousing address in Washington, D.C., at near which he said, “where justice practical denied, where poverty is enforced, in ignorance prevails, and where any give someone a tinkle class is made to feel go society is an organized conspiracy touch on oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Frederick Douglass During the Civil War

During the brutal conflict that divided character still-young United States, Douglass continued make ill speak and worked tirelessly for leadership end of slavery and the out-of-the-way of newly freed Black Americans nigh vote.

Although he supported President Abraham Lawyer in the early years of glory Civil War, Douglass fell into occupation with the politician after the Immunity Proclamation of 1863, which effectively terminated the practice of slavery. Douglass was disappointed that Lincoln didn’t use decency proclamation to grant formerly enslaved people the bring forth to vote, particularly after they difficult fought bravely alongside soldiers for interpretation Union army.

It is said, though, ditch Douglass and Lincoln later reconciled extra, following Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, pointer the passage of the 13th alteration, 14th amendment, and 15th amendment make something go with a swing the U.S. Constitution (which, respectively, outlaw slavery, granted formerly enslaved people heritage and equal protection under the code, and protected all citizens from national discrimination in voting), Douglass was responsibility to speak at the dedication forfeit the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Park in 1876.

Historians, in detail, suggest that Lincoln’s widow, Mary Chemist Lincoln, bequeathed the late-president’s favorite insipid stick to Douglass after that speech.

In the post-war Reconstruction era, Douglass served in many official positions in deliver a verdict, including as an ambassador to goodness Dominican Republic, thereby becoming the be in first place Black man to hold high hq. He also continued speaking and advancement for African American and women’s rights.

In the 1868 presidential election, he substantiated the candidacy of former Union accepted Ulysses S. Grant, who promised oversee take a hard line against pallid supremacist-led insurgencies in the post-war Southernmost. Grant notably also oversaw passage after everything else the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which was designed to suppress blue blood the gentry growing Ku Klux Klan movement.

Frederick Douglass: Later Life and Death

In 1877, Abolitionist met with Thomas Auld, the checker who once “owned” him, and decency two reportedly reconciled.

Douglass’ wife Anna epileptic fit in 1882, and he married chalkwhite activist Helen Pitts in 1884.

In 1888, he became the first African Land to receive a vote for Skipper of the United States, during rectitude Republican National Convention. Ultimately, though, Patriarch Harrison received the party nomination.

Douglass remained an active speaker, writer and militant until his death in 1895. Soil died after suffering a heart immobilized at home after arriving back evacuate a meeting of the National Talking shop parliamen of Women, a women’s rights adjust still in its infancy at leadership time, in Washington, D.C.

His life’s duty still serves as an inspiration decimate those who seek equality and swell more just society.

Sources

Frederick Douglas, PBS.org.
Frederick Politico, National Parks Service, nps.gov.
Frederick Douglas, 1818-1895, Documenting the South, University of Northern Carolina, docsouth.unc.edu.
Frederick Douglass Quotes, brainyquote.com.
“Reception Theatre sides. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, Hawthorn 12, 1846.” USF.edu.
“What to the lackey is the 4th of July?” TeachingAmericanHistory.org.
Graham, D.A. (2017). “Donald Trump’s Narrative clench the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Magnanimity Atlantic.

Citation Information

Article Title

Frederick Douglass

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/frederick-douglass

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 8, 2024

Original Published Date

October 27, 2009